Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/32

xxiv the 7th May, 1659, and the Acts of Settlement and of Explanation confirmed them to him by name. Like other owners of forfeited lands in Ireland, he suffered by the operation of the Court of Innocents in 1662, and was never able to convince himself that all who claimed innocency were in fact innocent. But in spite of his losses, he retained large Irish estates, and, in evidence of the King's approval, he was knighted and appears to have been appointed Surveyor-General of Ireland. The duties of this office at the time cannot have been more than nominal, for Petty continued to reside in London. During the Plague he withdrew to Durdens in Surrey where Evelyn found him, with Dr Wilkins and Mr Hooke, busied in contriving mechanical inventions.

In the spring of 1666 Petty was once more called to Ireland by the operations of the Court of Claims, and took up his residence in Dublin. During the ensuing period of his second prolonged stay in Ireland, he thoroughly identified himself with the material interests of that kingdom. As an army physician and surveyor of forfeitures, he had felt himself at most but a sojourner. As a Kerry landholder, able from Mount Mangerton in that country to behold 50,000 acres of his own land, he found abundant occupation, first in defending his titles during the sessions of the Court of Claims, and subsequently in managing his property. The uncertainty of titles in Ireland was great. "The Truth is," said Essex, "ye Lands of Ireland have bin a meer scramble ." Flaws and defects of various sorts, based on allegations of illegal forfeiture, or of unpaid